The present invention relates generally to electronic remote training collars and the like and also to collar-mounted electronic “bark limiter” or dog bark training devices, and more particularly to improvements therein which reduce the size, weight and power consumption thereof without reducing the open circuit stimulus voltage, allow convenient manual adjusting of stimulus levels, provide improved sensing of what constitutes valid barking, provide low-power standby operation when the dog is not barking, and allow monitoring of the amount of valid barking that actually occurs.
A variety of electronic dog training collars have been utilized for applying electrical shock and/or audible stimulus to a dog when it barks. In many situations it is highly desirable to prevent individual dogs or groups of dogs from barking excessively. For example, one dog's barking in a kennel is likely to stimulate other dogs to bark. This is undesirable with respect to the welfare of the dogs themselves and nearby people. Similar problems occur in neighborhoods in which there are dogs that are kept outside at night: if one dog starts barking others are likely to join in, causing a general disturbance.
The closest prior art is believed to include the present assignee's Bark Limiter product and commonly assigned U.S. Pat. No. 4,947,795 by G. Farkas entitled “Barking Control Device and Method”, issued Aug. 14, 1990 and incorporated herein by reference. U.S. Pat. No. 4,947,795 discloses a bark training device which allows a dog to control the level of electrical stimulus in response to its own barking behavior. This patent discloses circuitry in a collar-mounted electrical device that detects the onset of barking and initially produces only a single low level electrical stimulus pulse that gets the dog's attention, but does not initially produce a highly unpleasant level of stimulation. If the dog continues barking, the stimulation levels of the electrical shock pulses are increased at the onset of each barking episode in a stepwise fashion until the stimulus becomes so unpleasant that the dog stops barking for at least a predetermined time, e.g., one minute. After that minute elapses, the circuitry resets itself to its lowest initial stimultion level and remains inactive until barking begins again, and then repeats the process, beginning with the lowest level of stimulation and increasing the stimulus level if barking continues. In one embodiment, a certain duration, e.g., 30 seconds, of “watchdog barking” is permitted before the initial stimulus pulse is applied to get the dog's attention, after which continued “nuisance barking” results in gradual increasing in the intensity of the aversive stimulus up to a maximum level until the barking stops for at least one minute. However, the assignee's above mentioned Bark Limiter product does not use the algorithm described in U.S. Pat. No. 4,947,795 for producing increased stimulation in response to increased levels of barking, and instead provides a fixed duration stimulation with detection of an initial onset of barking, and provides a half second duration of stimulation with two seconds of pause, which is easily implemented and has been proven to be very effective.
The Tri-Tronics collar-mounted Bark Limiter product has been successfully marketed by the present assignee for many years. It has been very successful in the market because it effectively controls unwanted barking of large and medium-sized dogs. Its large size has allowed use of large batteries to power the circuitry that allows the Bark Limiter product to produce a substantial level of stimulation, which has been a major reason for the product's success. However, the large size and weight of the assignee's Bark Limiter product have limited it to use on medium-sized and large-sized dogs. Competitive products that have been smaller in size and weight and therefore have been usable on a small or tiny dogs have been introduced to the market, but their small size evidently has necessitated a substantial reduction in the level of stimulation that such products can produce in response to the dog's barking.
For many years, the present assignee has designed and marketed collar-mounted electronic dog training products which endeavor to keep the open circuit output voltage between the two stimulation electrodes at a high level in order to establish good electrode contact despite less than perfect electrical contact between the electrode contact area of one or both of the electrodes and the skin of the dog. This is explained, for example, in the assignee's U.S. Pat. No. 4,802,482 entitled “Method and Apparatus for Remote Control of Animal Training Stimulus” by Gonda et al., issued Feb. 7, 1989 and incorporated herein by reference.
Some of the assignee's prior collar-mounted dog training products have varied the intensity of electrical stimulation applied to the dog's neck by changing the widths of the current pulses driven through the primary winding of the output transformer. This causes the peak open circuit voltage produced between the stimulus electrodes driven by the secondary winding of the output transformer to vary as a function of the selected/desired stimulus intensity, and sometimes results in undesirably low open circuit voltages between the stimulus electrodes transformer.
A problem of the prior art has been that the effectiveness of coupling the electro-stimulus energy to the dog is reduced as the amount of RMS energy applied to the primary winding of the output transformer is reduced in order to reduce the stimulus intensity level. This reduces the reliability of the electrical contact between the stimulus electrodes and the skin of the dog's neck, and thereby reduces the effectiveness of the training or even causes the training to become counterproductive, and leads to over-tightening of collar straps by dog trainers and/or owners, which often causes chronic sores on the dog's neck.
Users of collar-mounted bark training products generally wish to be able to test such products by demonstrating their operability in response to a suitable sound or simulated bark signal. The assignee's prior Bark Limiter product has utilized test lights and an external tester that actuates its barking sound vibration sensor. Some of the prior art bark limiters have vibration sensors such as electret condenser microphones built into their housings between the stimulus electrodes. External buzzers have been used to stimulate the vibration sensor in order to test it and determine if the bark limiter is operative.
A shortcoming of the prior art bark training products is that they detect nearly any sound the dog makes and automatically shock the dog in response to the detected sound. The stimulation intensity can be changed only by removing the stimulation electrodes and replacing them with different stimulation electrodes having different series resistances. The battery life of some prior bark limiters has been undesirably short, especially because dog owners often find it convenient to leave the devices in a “power on” condition for long periods of time, even during times when the dog is not likely to be barking.
Another shortcoming of the larger prior art bark control devices is that they are too large to use on a small or tiny dog.
Yet another shortcoming of prior bark control devices is that occasionally when the dog scratches with its hind foot, it unintentionally contacts the power switch and turns off the power of the bark control device. The dog may learn that by “scratching” in a certain way it can turn the bark control device off.
Thus, there is an unmet need for an improved animal training device that provides a way of conveniently adjusting the level of the stimulation intensity applied to the animal.
There also is an unmet need for an improved animal training or bark control device that enables a user to readily determine which of various possible stimulation levels is presently selected.
There also is an unmet need for a small, lightweight electro-stimulus animal training device that despite its small size is nevertheless capable of providing a substantially larger open circuit output voltage that the prior small, lightweight electro-stimulus animal training devices.
There also is an unmet need for a small, lightweight bark control device that provides high open circuit output voltage over a wide range of low to high applied electrical stimulus levels.
There also is an unmet need for way of substantially reducing the power consumption of a animal training device.
There also is an unmet need for a small, lightweight, highly effective bark control device that is small and light enough to be readily worn by a small or tiny dog.
There also is an unmet need for an improved bark control device that avoids accidental stimulation of the dog in the event that the battery voltage is too low.
There also is an unmet need for an improved bark control device that cannot be accidentally or deliberately turned off by a dog's scratching activity.
There also is an unmet need for an improved collar-mounted animal training device that substantially reduces the occurrence and/or severity of neck sores on the animal wearing the device.